The Italian journalist behind the Vatileaks scandal has defended the actions
of the Pope's butler, saying he was trying to protect Benedict XVI from "wolves"
circling around him in the Holy See.

Gianluigi Nuzzi called on the 85-year-old pontiff to pardon Paolo Gabriele, his butler, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison on Saturday after being found guilty by a Vatican court of stealing confidential papers from the Pope's offices.

Mr Nuzzi said a stream of cardinals and bishops approached the butler in the hope that through him they could communicate their unhappiness about the power games and intrigues that were allegedly taking place at the heart of the Catholic Church.

"Little by little Paolo Gabriele became the confidant of those who, among the bishops and cardinals, were like him torn between their sincere admiration for the Pope and concern over behind-the-scenes manoeuvring," Mr Nuzzi wrote in an article printed by newspapers in Spain, Germany and France.

The claim is key because it contradicts the Vatican's insistence that Mr Gabriele was a well-meaning but deeply misguided soul whose only collaborator was a computer expert.

The technician, Claudio Sciarpelletti, is expected to go on trial next month for aiding and abetting the thefts.

Mr Nuzzi's editorial confirms the opinion of many Vatican analysts that for all its supposed transparency, the butler's trial was a cover-up and that he may have been just a small part of a much broader conspiracy.

Mr Nuzzi said the 46-year-old valet stole and leaked the confidential documents in order to publicise corruption, hypocrisy and "injustices" in the Holy See and because he thought the Pope was being kept in the dark.

He said the trial, which ended after just four hearings, had not explored Mr Gabriele's real motivations.

"According to him, Benedict is a pure man in the midst of wolves," wrote Mr Nuzzi, who published many of the stolen papers in a book, "His Holiness: Pope Benedict XVI's Secret Papers," in May.

The butler was particularly dismayed over the fate of a senior Vatican official, Monsignor Carlo Mario Vigano, who uncovered corruption in the awarding of contracts in the city state but was packed off to Washington as the pope's ambassador in an apparent bid to silence him.

He was also angry over the dismissal of Ettore Gotti Tedeschi, the head of the Vatican Bank, amid reports that he was blocked in his attempts to introduce greater transparency and accountability to the tarnished institution.

"These two affairs, which still have not been clarified, explain the frustration of a man who was alone in the face of these intrigues, and who was conscious of the fragility of the pontiff in this secular battle between good and evil," Mr Nuzzi wrote.

The journalist said it was "the protagonists of these plots" who had harmed the Church, not the butler.

Mr Gabriele had posed a "burning question – is the Pope a well-informed head of state or is he living in solitude, (unaware of) the problems that are troubling the Vatican?"

Despite being sentenced to 18 months in jail at the weekend Mr Gabriele remains under house arrest in his Vatican apartment and is widely expected to receive a pardon from the Pope.